Never Aren't Doing Anything

unfinished business

2011-10-09T15:26:00.000-07:00

unfinished business

2011-10-09T15:24:00.001-07:00

unfinished business

2011-10-09T14:45:00.000-07:00

med. microsoft paint

Outreach

2011-06-28T18:51:00.000-07:00

med. microsoft paint

Rhino fable

2011-06-18T09:50:00.000-07:00

Hammerstein swore he didn't know how it got in there.

"I swear, I was asleep and then when you got home I heard you and I woke up and there it was."

A rhinoceros was sitting in the kitchen. I peeked in again from the corner of the other room to get a second look. It looked like he frowned at me.

"It looked like he frowned at me."

"Yeah, he's a fucking ripe one I tell ya."

"What?"

From the kitchen we heard the rhino say something but we couldn't quite make it out and he would not repeat it. We both agreed it sounded like it had four syllables.

"I think he said 'mean a putter'."

"I think he said 'pee in water'."

"I think he said 'eat up utter'."

"I think he said 'weep, a gutter'."

The rhino spoke again. His voice sounded saggy and tired. This time we both heard and agreed he was requesting, or more likely, demanding, peanut butter.

"Is there any peanut butter."

"Yeah, in there."

The rhino stood up. He shuffled around so his giant horn was pointed toward the zone where peanut butter is kept, the cabinet zone. He turned his head to the side and then swiped it like a scythe right through the wood, decimating the cabinets, miscellaneous canned and packed foods spilling from the wound in the kitchen.

"Wow, he's really hungry."

"This sucks."

"I don't know, I kind of think it's funny."

"How is this funny?"

"..."

The rhino tapped his big foot in the pile on the ground. He repositioned his weight and accidentally stepped on a can of tuna which was crushed down into a compressed tuna disc.

"We should put that in the dvd player and see what happens."

"Yeah."

By the time he finally found the peanut butter me and Hammerstein were much too stoned to care. It seemed like the only logical thing to do. When there is a beast in your life demanding food but there's a chance if you try to fulfill his desire he will make you dead with nature strength defense fight mechanism actions, it is sometimes best to just get stoned and feel indifferent and hope that he goes away.

Sea monster scenario

2011-06-17T16:03:00.000-07:00

The sea monster is sitting on a bench next to the street in a college town. It has been a hot day, over 90 degrees. The sun has just gone down and the college kids are starting to come out of their holes for beer and shots and shout conversations. The sea monster is jotting down notes in a notepad he bought at a corner store.

note 1: Urgzall zop graht untobol rops zeun intobe mub tlakleyate shudd malalpengop.

translation: On average, they move in groups of three to five and usually three or more are communicating simultaneously.

The sea monster is enormous. He is trying to act casual, sitting there, but he is actually enveloping the entire bench. He is uncomfortable. His weight is pressing masses of his curling jelly flesh awkwardly against the wood and metal of the bench and he's clenching a bizarre muscle to keep his tentacles from exuding copious amounts of poison. Several scaly appendages are splayed out in front of him on the sidewalk. He's losing feeling in an important dorsal fin.

note 2: Crcuk-gangst pol turtelp meprigol ponge-ud clow rudenent sloap melp ontod slagripanginang rhuffensheedorp.

translation: The distance from which one group can be heard is directly proportional to the amount of bars said group has attended.

The sea monster is convinced he is blending in very well. He is wearing a hat he bought at American Apparel. It is not on his 'head' exactly, closer to an area you might guess is his shoulder, kind of flopping around near a slimy billow- this green-purple vent that is slapping open and closed and occasionally making burbling sounds while expelling translucent orange foam.

note 3: Bumstuddel laxrigud mrofantak reps dud mogro podernug (glazidliny mokx repple bangarang t-shirts)

translation: Groups wearing the same clothing seem to be especially disoriented within their surroundings (especially groups with identical printed t-shirts.)

The sea monster realizes this is the stupidest thing he's ever done, why was he even curious about this, and decides to go back home to the deep ocean to play in the dementedly radiant reef where he can swim around and feel some fucking peace.

Untitled #3

2011-06-14T14:36:00.000-07:00

Which is impossible, waking up, or mining ore one day when I woke up, which is impossible.

Deep in the mine's heart the water snake hugged the bottom rocks. Just off to the side of the black stream, where he lived, we were hacking away at the shiny wall. We'd been down inside for weeks, getting deeper every day. By now the pickaxe felt like an extension of my body. At the campsite I slept with it clutched in my hands, ate with it propped against my inner thigh, and when no one was around I talked to it. Sometimes I would pet it and hum the pickaxe tune which came to me one day during the final push at the end of a hard shift, physically exhausted, mentally unclassifiable. Sure, I was tired- a doctor casually strolling by in the mine might have walked over to us and said, "you men are suffering from exhaustion, seek rest and eat some pills, mmhm," but the truth is I was getting somewhere in the tired. Going somewhere. Sometimes it felt like vacation, but it wasn't easy. I wasn't committed to the feeling. It was not a value of mine, nor did I recognize it as any kind of intervention or outside wisdom. It just felt like progress. Dirty, tired, fuck-all progress of some variety that you find in the veins of the Earth, without looking for it.

The work started well enough, but after a while without any sun or good air the days were getting worse. Each time we moved the camp we talked a little less, laughed a little less. Sometimes guys would get on edge. Hear voices, see shit. And that fucking snake following us everywhere we went. It's either a snake or an eel, or maybe it's just a really long fish, I'm not sure. All I know is it's been tagging along the entire time. We named him 'Fuckthatsnake' and when there's nothing else to talk about we take turns saying his name. One night we were all eating dinner and one of the guys got up and started to walk toward the water.

"Watch this," he said, lifting a rock the size of a watermelon over his head and then walking toward the black stream.

"Get him!" we shouted, "Fuckthatsnake!"

He got up to the bank and chucked it in. "Unkploosh" was the immediate sound, but as soon as the splash had settled, from the bottom of the black stream there came a horrifying giggle which echoed off the walls, it was so loud and clear, brief but chilling to the core of bone, something deeply evil. He came back walking quick and stiffly with his eyes open full, barely able to move through the fear. "Nothing happened," he said in a foreign voice, approaching the rest of us, and then again, when he sat down among us, "nothing happened." It took two days before any of us worked up the nerve to speak words again.

Recently it seems that each new day I get a little stronger. I don't know what has happened to me, but in my extreme and utter exhaustion I have gained some amorphous new energy. I feel it especially in my arms, feel the wind in them, feel it in the grip of my pickaxe. The tool is less a tool to me now, more like an appendage, and a new way to communicate with something I know not what. I strike the wall with venom, every day a little bit harder. The others are starting to notice, they make jokes about it.

"Hey look everybody, Captain Mine-rica is at it again. Let's give him a big hand to show our appreciation," or, "looks like Mine-y Mouse ate his Wheaties again today. Hey Mine-y Mouse, when are you gonna share with us?" and on like that.

I can't say that I blame them. At first it annoyed me, but now I can see how funny it is. I'd never join them of course, but I spit something back occasionally, meat for the wolves. The wolves, the miners, my friends, the only people down here with me.

Last night, when everyone was asleep, I went to the black stream. I stood on the bank and looked at the form of the creature who lives there, who follows us, who I know is the devil. After a moment I began to feel drawn toward him. He seemed so powerful and rare, and I found myself charmed by something I can't explain. I wanted to see what he really looked like. I wanted to touch the teeth, lift him and place my palm on his underbelly, touch the scales. I was ankle deep in the water when I snapped out of it.

"I know what you want with me," I said.

"Come closer," said the snake.

"You'll never get your chance to devour me," I said.

"I want to show you something," he said.

"I have to go now. I have work to do," I said.

Untitled #2

2011-06-13T14:13:00.000-07:00

One day I woke up and felt at ease, not a care in the world, which is impossible.

My pet reindeer were clopping around the room freely. I fed them and said a prayer in their language. When I had finished, two of them sprouted wings and one of them gained the ability to do complex math equations. I love them dearly, and, though verbal communication is out of the question, we talk to one another in the way we move, the tone of our sounds. I can't remember how I came to own them. I don't even consider it ownership, and often I think it is they who are taking care of me.

I nod my head a certain way at Backer. He spins around 360 degrees and makes a whoofing snuff. I try to hold in my laugh, but I can't, so he does it again. Tella comes over and nuzzles my shoulder, but I stand up quickly and put my arms above my head, hands touching in a triangle. At this she rears up, balancing on her haunches. I am holding my breath. This is the contest. Tella is getting better, and after a couple minutes she is still balancing when I say PAAHH. She wins. I am proud. I have to go out to get them more food, so I communicate this and leave the place.

Outside it's hot, but I welcome the oppressive sun. I think about the miles, the millions of them, traveled by this light to come here and melt its process of warm nutrition on the planet, bathing the rock in waves of molecular activity, cooking life out of soil. When I get to the store there is a note posted on the door. Seems they've relocated a couple miles down the street. I continue on feeling strong, warm, alive. I note my heart rate, the pump, the sweat on my back, a trillion cells swing dance laboring. In my mind the lungs are blue and green-purple neon, and every breath I take undergoes its own chemical process, each single swallow of oxygen is intermittent life. The new location is still grocery store sized, but smaller, and when I enter through the doors I notice it is completely empty except for a lone desk in the middle of the reflective tiled room. Behind the desk sits a man in large leather chair, feet up on the desk reading a newspaper. He is wearing a suit, with the grocery store's signature apron draped on over it. He has heard me come in, and he lowers the paper slightly, peering over to see who's there.

"Come in," he says, and I approach the desk, maybe twenty paces into the room.

"What can I help you with today?" he asks.

"I was looking to buy some reindeer food."

"Hm." He folds the newspaper and places it down on the desk, then starts to rifle through the wooden drawers. I can hear him sifting through something in each drawer, pushing objects around, some of them muddled clunking together, others jangling, the sound of glass clinking and a metal on metal clang. He's gone through six or seven drawers when he's finished looking and one of his hands is covered in what looks like marmalade.

"I don't have any of that stuff, but," he stoops down into a crouch and is gone underneath the desk. When he resurfaces he is holding an object. "I do have this."

To say that the object was beautiful does not do any kind of justice. To say it was cosmically gorgeous, a visual manifestation of pure love, does not begin to scratch the surface. I couldn't say anything. I dropped to my knees and stared. I didn't realize I was crying until he put it away again. Slowly I gathered myself. I wiped my face, coughed a few times, and said, "how much."

"You'd really want to buy that thing?" he asked me.

"Yes."

"No you don't."

"I do. I need that. It's everything I ever wanted."

"Or do you just think that it is?"

"You saw it yourself. How did you.. where did you get that?"

"I'm not telling you that. What's important is that you realize that buying that thing would be the end of you. You would sit around, staring at it all day, lost in ecstasy, feeling infinite, until the day you died. Or, worse, there's the chance that you'd find a way to get bored of it. Can you imagine becoming bored of something like that? It's entirely possible. Not only that, but it's likely, in your case, I can tell. And once you became tired of looking at it you would be miserable. Spiritually and emotionally broken, you would try in vain to fill a void deep within you that could never be satisfied. It'd be a crime to sell this to you."

"I don't care. You're wrong. I won't get tired of it. Please, how much?"

"Alright, 50 bucks."

"Call it 40?"

"45."

"Deal."

I brought the thing home and looked at it for hours and hours. The hours turned into days. Over time the reindeer became hungry, then they were starving. They grew agitated and depressed due to my inattention. All of them have left, except Tella, gone off to I don't know where. Sometimes she comes up and tries to nuzzle me but usually I ignore her. I've forgotten who I am, or, who I was. I just want to look at my object forever, which is impossible.

Untitled

2011-06-12T12:59:00.000-07:00

One day I woke up and I hated myself, and I loved everybody, which is impossible.

My gorgeous little phalanx was at it again. It was marauding on the surface of the table, geometrically marching over the food laid out for eating. They operated now without my command. They'd go up to the potatoes and spear them in unison, then walk across the broccoli and take up a defensive turtle shell shield formation in the center of the plate. Then when the coast was clear they instinctively charged my glass of milk, rocking it back and forth so that a white glob got out and plopped a slop spot all on the reflection of my nose in my knife. I couldn't help but be proud, they'd worked so hard to get to this point, every day forging their will a little sharper, training up new members, becoming comrades.

"The trick," I said, later that afternoon, when giving a rousing speech while tucking them in to bed, "is to do your job and half of your brother's next to you. You are all little brothers and you will fight with much vehement fervor. Some of you will die, killed in combat, or, otherwise, friendly skewering or some such thing, that is inevitable. We can only hope there is an afterlife. Actually, you know what? Let me go check."

I kicked out of the door in a blind drunkstep. I wasn't drunk, but. Locked it. The thing about doors is you have to turn the knob and push or pull them to get them in the right place- twice, sometimes. I careened down the stairs, if you could call them that, and splashed outside. I began sprinting and crying. When I stopped I was in a small yard in the middle of the woods, out of breath, leaning over with hands on my knees due to the new weight I had gained in my head. I started pacing around, kind of stumbling, hunched over looking for clues. The weight was immense and it took everything I had to keep my head from collapsing against the ground. I could see the earth below me as I walked around like this, my dangling arms, rocky gravel spots, packed mud-dirt, my pathetic legs and feet, until I came upon a shiny reflective stone, stuck in a small crater. It was flat in the ground but gave the impression that it had been forcibly crushed into this spot in a tremendous event of unrelenting energy. The expression in the dirt surrounding the stone was 'why?'. In the surface's reflection I saw my head had grown another head, this one enormous and beaming a wide grin, an expression of sheer bliss.

"What the fuck are you?" I whispered at it.

In the trees to the side of me there was a rustling sound, then someone yelled, "Whoops!" and I heard an explosion. There was a flash of light and then smoke billowing from the direction of the blast. He came out of it neatly charred, like someone intended him to look charred, like it was someone's job, as a professional, to make him look charred or burned or just decimated by fire, perhaps for a summer blockbuster flick in which he played the character of 'explosion victim 8', and so he or she, the professional, carefully applied black char makeup to his skin and clothing in order to make him look like he had died in an explosion. Been killed, I mean.

"Yep, that's true," he said.

"What?" I said.

"The thing about the makeup, what a description! Hey, have you ever heard of the man with two heads?"

"No."

"Hah, that's you you stupid fuck! But I'm sorry, I realize I'm being a little rude here. You must be deeply confused at this point, being where you are and all, I mean uh.. hm.." he coughed, "in your state of mind."

"No, I think I'm fine," I said, "and also, fuck you very much."

"Ooh, that tickles me. Good one. Welp, I'll be going now. Gotta.. go.. do something or. I don't know, see-ya!" And he walked away into the woods.

When I woke up I sat up and spat out the dirt that had fused with my drool. Sitting across from me on a little log was my second head, who had grown or found a body. He found it. He was still smiling immensely.

"Stop looking at me," I said.

"I love you," he said, and cocked his head back to expel a fit of booming laughter. It really did sound joyous, the happiest laugh I'd ever heard.

"I wish you'd just go away," I said.

"You have a beautiful soul. Your heart is good and strong, and you will help people in your lifetime."

Again he couldn't contain his laughter. I knew he wasn't laughing at me, this was the laughter of joy. It can't be mistaken for something else, unless it can, which is impossible.

"Alright fine," I said. I pulled out the sack I kept in my back pocket and spread it open on the ground. "Go ahead." He stood up, walked over, and sat down in the sack. I pulled it up around him and yanked on the drawstring, tightening it to close up the opening. He began to speak again, but I jabbed my elbow into where I thought his gut was, and he was quiet. I rolled him into the small crater, on top of the reflective stone and buried him with dirt I scraped up using my hands. The sun was going down. There were thunder clouds far away in the sky, drifting toward us. I had my answer for the phalanx now. All I had to do was go back home and tell them about it. It was the easiest thing in the world. So I went home, and I told them. And it was the worst decision I have ever made, unless it wasn't, which is impossible, which is not impossible.

Checkpoint!

2011-06-09T18:20:00.000-07:00

Last night I couldn't sleep. I was thinking a lot and I wasn't tired. The sun started to come up. I was looking out the window for about an hour just watching the sky get lighter. Then I thought 'enough of that', and I pulled out the milk crate I keep under the table I sleep next to. In the milk crate there are books and notebooks and some other things. I wanted to find some clues. Clues for what I need to do, or not do, or a combination of the two, or something else. I wasn't sure what really, but I rummaged through the crate and until I found myself holding a cardboard pouch of pictures I took in my basement the night before I left Rhode Island. That night I couldn't sleep. That morning started with me staring at the sky while the sun was coming up. When I was taking those pictures I had no idea why I was taking them or if I'd ever even look at them. When I moved to Delaware I had them developed, glanced at them briefly, and put them aside until this morning. This morning I understood why I took them, but I can't really explain it. I'm not even going to try. Sometimes you need to let strong feelings swim in your blood and not tell anyone what they mean because you aren't even sure yourself. Probably, anyway.

The next thing I grabbed was a book of poems called 'The Ghost Soldiers' by James Tate. It's one of my favorite books, easily making my top 250,000. I opened up to the poem called 'Liverpill' which, as soon as I read the title, gave me a significant chill because it is the fucking scariest poem in the book. It's like reading a Goosebumps book smushed into two pages alone in the dark when you're 11. This is 'Liverpill' by James Tate:

Liverpill

The monster came back again tonight. He must live somewhere in this house, because I heard no door or window open. I'm no longer afraid of him, just repulsed. He's about three feet tall with little beady eyes and a small mouth with a few short, dull teeth. He just stood there and stared at me. I don't know if he wanted food or what, but I tried to ignore him. I mean, he was an intruder and I could have shot him. The law would be on my side. But, never having seen a monster before, I thought he should be preserved for scientific purposes, if nothing else. But, then, over the course of several months since his first appearance, I still had failed to notify the proper authorities. I'm watching television or reading a book and he just stands there looking at me. He's a kind of yellowish gray color with clots of fur here and there, really kind of atrocious to look at. I've given him a name. I call him Liverpill. I said, "Liverpill, why don't you go sit down and we'll watch the news together." He belched and just looked at me. I couldn't tell if he liked me or hated me. I said, "Liverpill, you are beginning to get on my nerves. If you are going to live in this house there are certain rules you are going to have to abide by. You can't just stand there staring at me. That's rude. Dinner is served at 6:30. And you must do you share of cleaning up. Some polite conversation would be appreciated. You can tell me about you day, what have you accomplished and so on. Do you understand me?" He took a step toward me and belched. "I am a monster, not a house-wife. I can eat you any time I want, I'm just not hungry yet, still digesting my last meal, a family of four. Your time will come," he said. "So you can speak," I said. "Only when I'm very angry," he said. Now I was very uneasy, thought I had better develop some strategies. My hunting rifle was in the bedroom closet, but this didn't seem the time to try and get it. "I had no intention of angering you, I just thought if we were going to be living together we might find a way to make it easier on both of us," I said. "Life is hard, and it will always be hard," he said. Of course it would be hard if you were that ugly. I decided to drop all attempts at conversation. I wasn't concerned about scientists anymore. I wanted Liverpill dead. And I couldn't very well count on the police if I called them and told them I had a monster in my house. So it was up to me to dispatch this ugly man-eating creature. "Excuse me, I'm going to lie down for a few minutes. Terribly tired," I said. In the bedroom, I found the rifle and loaded it. I feared this was going to be a terrible mess. I took several deep breaths, then walked back into the living room, rifle at the ready. He was standing there looking at me. "I hate this part," he said. "Me, too," I said. I fired the first shot and he started walking toward me. I fired again and he didn't stop. I fired again and he walked right into me. "Liverpill," I said, "where are you? Where are you hiding?"

I gathered the clues from Liverpill. They were more obvious than the ones in the pictures. I thought 'thanks, James Tate,' and 'okay, what else?' Next I reached for a book called 'The Best American Poetry 2001' edited by David Lehman and Robert Hass. It wasn't in my crate, it was next to it on the floor, but I knew that was where the next clue was. I flipped through and landed on the second page of a poem called 'Seven Deadly Sins' by Yusef Komunyakaa. I've never read anything by Yusef Komunyakaa but this morning he helped me out with my investigation. I did the thing where you flip through the book and make a sudden stop. When I stopped I was looking at the word 'lust'. This is part of a poem by Yusef Komunyakaa:

Lust

If only he could touch her,

Her name like an old wish

In the stopped weather of salt

On a snail. He longs to be

Words, juicy as passionfruit

On her tongue. He'd do anything,

Would dance three days & nights

To make the most terrible gods

Rise out of ashes of the yew,

To step from the naked

Fray, to be as tender

As meat imagined off

The bluegill's pearlish

Bones. He longs to be

An orange, to feel fingernails

Run a seam through him.

That made me think some more. Sure did. Next I went back to my crate. I picked out the book 'Manifestos of Surrealism' by Andre Breton. It's my friends book but I'm borrowing it in my crate. I opened up and started scanning the words on the pages, reading half sentences and flipping around until I stopped on a footnote that felt like the place to stop. It said:

Even? people will say. It is up to us, in fact- without thereby taking the edge off the specifically intellectual flavor of curiosity with which Surrealism irritates, on their own ground, the poetry specialists, the art critics, and the narrow-minded psychologists- it is up to us to move, as slowly as necessary, without any sudden fits or starts, toward the worker's way of thinking, by definition little inclined to follow us in a series of undertakings which the revolutionary concern for the class struggle does not, ultimately, imply. We are the first to deplore the fact that the only interesting segment of society is systematically kept in ignorance of what the head of the other is doing, that it only has time to devote to those ideas relating directly to its emancipation, which leads it to confuse, with summary mistrust, anything which is undertaken, willingly or not, outside its own sphere, because of the mere fact that the social problem is not absolutely the only one that has been posed. It is therefore not surprising that the Surrealism refrains from deflection, however slightly, from the course of its own admirably effective reflections, that part of the youth which drudges while the other, more or less cynical, part watches it drudge. In return, what should it try if not, as a start, to stop, on the edge of the definitive concession, a small number of men armed only with scruples but about whom there is no certainty- the silver spoon with which they were born is no proof- that they too will opt for wealth against poverty? Our fondest desire is to keep within the reach of these people a nucleus of ideas which we ourselves found astounding, meanwhile being careful to keep the communication of these ideas from becoming an end rather than remaining the means that it should be, since the end must be the total elimination of the claims of a class to which we belong in spite of ourselves and which we cannot help abolish outside ourselves as long as we have not succeeded in abolishing them within ourselves.

'Holy shit, I am getting my ass handed to me this morning,' I thought. This was good, I was starting to get a feeling from all these clues. Some of them stuck out more than others, but together they formed a kind of globule something-else-consciousness that was doing it for me. When I'd been staring out the window before, I was thinking about a lot of people and situations, and it was making me feel like shit. By now though, I was feeling pretty good. I knew that there was only one more ingredient that I needed to add to my mixture, something even more putrid, defective, and demented than Liverpill himself. I turned on the TV.

It was 6:50something by now and so I thought 'I will watch the Today show for one hour and write a minute by minute summary of what I am experiencing. The basics- what are they reporting about? What are the commercials like? You know, easy enough. Here's the play-by-play for Thursday, June 9, 2011:

7:00-7:04- Upcoming show topics- Topics mentioned include- Ann Curry new co-anchor, Heat wave, highest car death ratings, mother on trial for murdering her daughter, Shanaia Twain fell down, US steps up covert airstrikes in Yemen.

7:04-7:11- Anthony Weiner penis picture scandal is discussed.

7:11-7:14- Heat wave is discussed. Man talks about installing an air conditioner unit. Man with hard hat says 'good idea to stay out of heat'. Couple taking wedding pictures outdoors says they were sweating because so hot out.

7:14-7:18- Upcoming show topics. Topics include: wildfires, Hurricane Adrian, Gaddafi smashing rebel forces, Al Qaeda's second in command vows to avenge Bin Laden's death, stocks extending losses for 6th straight day, hackers gain access to one percent of something (this is explained in a really weird way, couldn't tell what it meant), Boston Bruins won a hockey game, Shanaia Twain fell down- blames shoes-kid rock grins at her misfortune.

7:18-7:19- Weather- extreme storms, hail possible for much of midwest

7:19-7:22- Police looking for missing college student in Indiana, last seen walking to her apartment at 4:30am, parents are interviewed- mother visibly crying hard, man who's daughter disappeared 11 years ago, body found 8 years ago says it's hard thing to go through.

7:22-7:26- Commercials include: colon medication, personal injury lawyer.

7:26-7:28- Local news- accidents in the area are mentioned (3), dangerous heat is mentioned

7:28-7:30- Commercials include amusement park getaway, school you can go to do learn how to do angioplasty.

7:30-7:31- Ann Curry is new co-host. She wipes her eye while mouthing "I'm gonna cry" into the camera. Her and Matt Lauer touch each other awkwardly.

7:31- 7:32- Upcoming story- mother admits she doesn't like her daughter. (I'm not making any of this up)

7:32- 7:35- Was little girl murdered by her mother? Mother may have used chloroform. Man says "little girl's death is a spectacle". Coverage of the trial is advertised on billboards. Case is compared to OJ Simpson trial. Man says "coming of age story for social media". Woman says "people obsessed with trial? yes." Reporters and those interviewed all smiling when talking about it.

7:35-7:36- US Weather- Hurricane Adrian is mentioned. Weather map of US is filled with fucking crazy graphics all over the place. Local weather- heat warning, storms coming in tonight.

7:36-7:39- Commercials include depression medication, I can't believe it's not butter, grillin' beans commercial which includes family with amazing hair and talking dog.

7:39-7:49- Montage for Ann Curry, starring Ann Curry.

7:49-7:52- Commercials include American Express, Capri sun- 100% juice, hershy's chocolate goodness that brings people together, United healthcare, Walmart, skin cream for your dirty face that you aren't cleaning well enough, buy clothes at burlington coat factory so you can brag about them.

7:52- Quick reminder of upcoming story about cars with highest death rates.

7:52-7:56- Commercials include Walmart (again), movie about owen wilson in paris, women's 1 a day vitamin, frozen pizza, Hallmark- father's day edition, Ethen allen designer clothes, nicarette gum minis, Chevy, paper towels, watch Bruins hockey, personal injury lawyer.

7:56-7:58- Local news update- today is scorcher, T-storms approaching, accident update (3 more happened since you were watching this), graphic reads 'Dangerous Heat', baseball game on tonight.

7:58-8:00- Commercials include Extra TV show- arnold schwarzenegger scandal is discussed, travel to New Jersey with slogan 'now that's New Jersey!", American signature furniture, we buy lemon cars website, Enrique iglesias in concert, American signature furniture (again), access hollywood- actress scandal is discussed.

8:00- Dangerous Heat is mentioned. Upcoming stories- mother who says she doesn't like her daughter, cars with highest death ratings, new band tearing up the charts (matt lauer is a fan).

That's one hour. The show is three hours long. I thought about that. My brain was pretty fragged now. I wasn't sure if this was the final piece I needed, but it did something to me, and finally I fell asleep. Now I'm awake. It's good to take a day to gather clues. For me, anyway. It's more how you look than what you look at. The other day the repair guy came into this apartment. The heat was the topic of discussion, but what he said made him sound like a philosopher. He said, "Today is nothing compared to tomorrow." Yep.

Questioning/Queschunning/ safer version

2011-06-07T18:35:00.000-07:00

med. microsoft paint

^(safer version)

New way to get in touch with you

2011-06-07T18:23:00.000-07:00

The new way for me to get in touch with you is to get Aquaman and compress his face with my hands so that he sends out an underwater sonic boom that comes up through faucets.

It takes longer because I have to get Aquaman first, like, catch him- in the ocean, which is really hard, but it's so much more fun than touching buttons on a plastic box that I never do not want to punt into a slate wall.

Then once the sonic boom comes up-

well, it starts as a sonic boom but by the time it gets to the nearest faucet, and depending on how far away you are, it's more like a garbled plosh, like a drunk clam tongue sound, usually coupled with a hint of watery muffled Aquaman's voice getting his face compressed-

you've got less than ten seconds to run up to the faucet and bash it repeatedly with a hammer or a pipe.

Or you can use a shovel.

I wait for the vibrations, trying to stay still while Aquaman thrashes around- I still have his face in a tight clutch- and when I hear that tinny metal clanking I squeeze his face like my life depends on it until he taps out and then I let him go so he can tell me how far away you are.

Sometimes after he taps out he tries to get away without telling me but I can usually catch him again-

he is tired from having his face squeezed like my life depended on it.

Oh sure, he's summoned all kinds of predatory fish, squid, fucking giant sea horses, I've wrestled them all.

I ripped a sting ray in half.

He didn't summon it, I did it for money.

Please don't think less of me.

This is all I can do.

Think less of me. Think the least.

All I can do is imagine I'm under water chasing things around and wrestling things so that I can get in touch with you.

So then I get to where you are, wet and tired but still feeling the buzz from all that squid wrestling, from the manhandling and face compressing, and maybe with some stings or cuts from teeth or barbed whatever beaks and shit that a squid has, fucking ink-filled pain in the ass, slippery-ass tenticled fuck, and I definitely have prune fingers, still, even after the walk, still pruned, and my ball sack all shrunken from the cold salt water, teeth chattering, water was fucking cold..

Hi.

Scientists contemplating the location of a brow

2011-06-07T18:16:00.000-07:00

I will go away forever and become a lake of porridge, just by not being around.
And my inhabitants will swim in my neck especially, the neck being the part that's best to swim in.

I will go away forever and step gingerly on a mountain top I found by walking up to it and saying 'mountain top' and then extinguishing the fire behind my human eyes with animal eyes provided by firefighters.

I will go away forever and throw parties at innoportune moments, mostly just after everyone has gone to sleep or when they're at work, or when they're fucking around with some giant fucking clown head fuck balloons because it's Easter.

I will go away forever and sit down sideways on a rat pile of big mice and minced color greeny reddish brown.

I know several hundred ways to eat noise but fail half the time I try.

For fear of getting full I guess.

I hate being full or full mostly.

I am not me when I am not hungry.

When I am full I am mostly like a guest.

I will go away forever and read about lead twice a day to keep my lead reading up for fear of forgetting my lead facts I will read lead books.

I will go away forever and become something so stretched out, so pulled, you'd need a scientist just to be able to make a guess at where my stomach is, my brow.

That's his brow

it has to be

we've been at this for days

let's go home

everything is too stretched out here

I will go away forever and accidentally bomb a small village or a mining town, and of course I'll have no better explanation than being in the wrong place at the wrong time but I'll know that really the truth is that I watch the news and get ideas and love to hear the pomegranite bomb noise go off as I eat up all the bits going everywhere and into my mouth.

I will go away forever and corrupt your soul by having you think about me, and you don't even know me, you fucking fruit loop.

If I ever do come back I'll rent a bundle of swords, one for each word you say when you see me for the first time again, and I'll use them later on for spreading butter on your ass.

It's been confirmed

this is the information

the location is there

that's definitely the brow

I will go away forever and lay down in a tub of resting bees who won't feel like stinging me, lazy bees, I'll piss them off somehow.

If I ever do come back I'll get a hundred buckets of manequin hands and sell them as disposable business meeting shakers for businessmen who I know are hypochondriacs.

I will go away forever and be invited to strange dinner parties, my invitation will read 'the ghost', and I will sit and eat politely, dotting the napkin to my lips after every bite, staring down at my plate, staring under the food, through the table, past the feet, under the lip of the kitchen door, past the butler, through the cook's dick, out the open window and eventually..

If I ever do come back I'll have to weigh my neck at the checkpoint, that is upon re-entry, my neck is rented.

If I ever do come back I'll make sure I lash something to my back like a nest or a chamber so when people see me again I have something to talk about besides going away forever and then coming back.

If I ever do come back I'll dine good oh yeah.

I will go away forever and motion to a big sky animal that I'm not in the mood for all that circling it's doing and I'll watch it land in a tree.

I will go away forever and give myself a pat on the back for being such a terminally cyclonic fuck head who loves certain vegetables.

I will go away forever and pack a dallop of this, a dallop of that, some stuff, that over there, this will do, aha, oohwee.

I will go away forever and slow down my metabolism until I am a gnome and during the transformation I will cum.

I will go away forever and shoot at newspaper stands with birdshot, and at birds I will huck newspapers.

I will go away forever and make a fool out of the state of things.

I will go away forever and tie my hair into a bow so you can untie my bow hair, honk honk.

I will go away forever and clean shoes quickly for nickels, slower for pennies, fastest for lead books.

I will go away forever and and and and and.

I will go away forever and froth thinkin' of all the times I duped em' and sat down later in shit.

If I ever do come back I'll make sure there's a general realization about something very vague that has to do with all of us.

I'm not so sure that's the brow

can we just leave this at a guestimate

I think that's all we have to go on ever

affirmative.

Upstaresdownstares/ safer version

2011-05-28T18:46:00.000-07:00

med. microsoft paint

^(safer version)

Red Planet

2011-05-24T14:43:00.000-07:00

Stu came into the room holding a koosh ball.

"It's that time again?" I asked.

"Yeah, sit down."

I took a seat on the floor and Stu sat across from me. I sat in a triangle and he sat in a rhombus. He was letting the koosh ball roll out of one hand and into the other, back and forth, diagonally up and down.

"What did you have for breakfast?"

"I had two eggs and a potato," I said.

"What did you put on the potato?"

"Some hot sauce."

Stu squinted at me and moved his face a little closer into the space between us.

"What are your farts smelling like lately?"

"Hm." I paused to think. "Like old metal. Like, uh.. like rotten apples rubbed against old metal."

Stu winked at me. He was still rolling the koosh ball.

"What." I said.

"When's the last time you watched TV?"

"Last night," I said.

"What did you watch?"

"I watched a show about how Dinosaurs invented braille, but the government doesn't want us to know."

"What were the commercials like?"

"I don't remember."

Stu stopped rolling the koosh ball. He leaned his head forward and said "think". Then he leaned back and grabbed the koosh by one of its little tentacles and started whapping it against his closed fist.

"There was a commercial where everyone was really happy."

"And?"

"They were at a park, at a picnic table, having a picnic. I think they were eating flat bread. No, they were eating muffins. It was a muffin commercial."

"What did they say."

"The mom said it's good for fun, or something. Good for the family, family fun, I think."

"Good."

"Why."

"What did you do yesterday afternoon?"

"What time?"

"Noon."

"I was still asleep."

"Alright, three o'clock."

"I walked around for a while."

"What did you see?"

"Lots of things."

"Any people?"

"Sure."

"What were they wearing?"

"They weren't all wearing the same thing."

"Okay."

Stu got up and left the room. I stood up and looked around and went pstsshshhsh to let out some of the air that had built up in my torso during the questioning. I went back to my cot and laid down. The ceiling was one solid color- white. There was a little crack in the ceiling, coming out of the wall above my cot. I looked at the crack for a while and then Stu came back in with the results.

"You are shy, but approachable. You think of yourself as a go-getter, but you have trouble finding motivation most days. Stay close to the Caterpillar, but fear the Mollusk. Marry a Blood-Clot or a Lotus. Do not even think about having a conversation with the Choo-Choo Train. Your lucky numbers are.."

He stood there squinting, looking up and down the page.

"You don't have any."

"Thanks Stu. How much do I owe you?"

"Hundreds and hundreds of credits."

"Uh."

"NAH, joking, three credits."

I gave Stu three credits. He left and I laid back down on my cot. I resumed my investigation of the crack. It went out of the wall and toward the middle of the ceiling. Toward the end of the crack it got thinner and branched into two smaller cracks. One of the branches curled in angles back toward the fork in the crack, making an almost-circle.

Agatha ran into the room. She looked crazed. She had her arms out like there was a large beach ball incoming and a price to pay if she dropped it.

"Where's your bathroom?"

"Down the hall on the left."

She ran out. A little while later I heard the toilet flush, then the sink go on and off, and then she came back in looking calm.

"Should I sit down?" I asked.

"Yes."

I sat down in a triangle on the floor. Agatha sat in an almost-circle.

"How's that portal coming along?" she asked me.

"Well you know it's.. I don't know I'm having trouble with the.. diameter, but. Most of the particle collapsing is done, it's just a matter of-"

-"When I say the word, 'Orange', what's the first thing you think of?"

"The color, I guess. The color Orange?"

"Right, and when I say the word, 'Gallon', what is the first thing that comes to mind?"

"Milk."

"If I were to say the word, 'Abominable', what kind of mental imagery would you get?

"I see a big snow monster."

"And if I say, 'Merylstreep'?

"'Merylstreep'? One word?"

"Yes."

"I think of the actress, Meryl Streep."

"I'll be right back."

Agatha left the room. I was fiddling with some carpet strands when she came back in with the results.

"That was fast," I said.

"You are perfectly normal, and there is nothing wrong with you. Seven credits please."

I stood up and handed Agatha seven credits. She smiled and spun around to leave and her ponytail whipped my nose a little bit. It smelled good. I could see her bra strap through her shirt. She left the room.

Dolf walked in.

"You sure are a pervert." he said.

"Hey Dolf."

"Thirteen credits please."

I gave Dolf thirteen credits, and he left in a hurry. It was getting later. I closed the door to my room and sat down on the cot. I put my head in my hands and rubbed my eyes, then I rubbed my ears and pushed some pressure against my head with my palms. I felt slightly better. Then I stood up and went over to look in the mirror. I started to make different expressions with my face. I curled my upper lip and exposed my teeth to sneer. I opened my eyes up wide and my mouth open full to look demonic. Then I pushed my nose up with my finger and made a piggy smile. There was a knock at the door.

"Police! Open up!"

"Just a sec!"

I ran to the bed and pulled the case out from underneath. I popped the metal clips, opened it up, and began assembling the parts inside as fast as possible. The knock came again, louder.

"Police! Open the door!"

I got the stock on and snapped the magazine into place, then I screwed in the smoke canister . I carefully attached the bayonet and the scope, then the laser sight and the grenade launcher. The chainsaw attachment was a little sticky but I got it on no problem. I flipped the switch to power up the amperage lance. The shuriken chamber had some gunk in it, so I swabbed it out with my finger. I wrestled with the boomerang clutch and barely managed to cram it in the notch next to the flamethrower port just as the door was kicked in, splintering off its hinges. I spun and pointed the fully loaded weapon.

"Whoa! Don't shoot! Don't shoot!"

It was Din and Waldo. They were standing leaning backwards, gritting their teeth with their hands up in front of their faces, heads turned to the side and their eyes closed. I poked my head over the weapon and glared at them. My adrenaline was boiling. The hair on the back of my neck was sticking up.

"Well, what the fuck!?" I said.

"Shit, man," Din said.

"Fuck," Waldo said.

"What the fuck!?"

Din opened one eye and said, "we thought it'd be funny. Can you put that down, it's still aiming at us."

"What the fuck!? You thought it'd be funny to- break down my door?" When I said 'break' I jabbed the gun forward a little and Waldo flinched. He became pale immediately.

"I gotta go to the bathroom," Waldo said, and left the room.

Din- "We were messing around, just put that thing down."

"I almost burned you! I have my finger on the flamethrower trigger! You were almost on fire just now!"

"Just calm down, alright?"

I placed the gun on the floor and put my hands on my head. Din finally lowered his hands. We stayed still for a while not talking or saying anything, just staying still.

"Well what if it had been the police? You would have burned them?"

"Yeah, probably."

"Man, you're fucked up. You know that's really why we came by. You don't return our calls, we haven't seen you in weeks. You sit around here and pay people to come in and- what, they analyze you? They give you advice?"

"It's just conversations."

"It's not just conversations. You're addicted to it. You are, aren't you?"

I was staring at the wall not saying anything. The toilet flushed. Waldo peaked his head around the corner and then slunk into the room.

Nobody was saying anything, then Waldo said, "I threw up."

Din cracked a smile, I couldn't see him but I could tell. Then I smiled a little bit and turned to Waldo who did not think anything was funny. Then I looked at Din and back at the wall, and we both laughed.

Din- "We gotta go. We'll pay for the door. Whatever. Just don't kill anybody and lay off that bullshit for a while."

"Bye bye," I said.

Din and Waldo left. I broke down the gun and put it back in the case and under the bed. I picked up the door and leaned it on the frame, then I kicked the splinters and chunks of wood into a pile against the wall. I laid back down on my cot and stared back up at the crack. I had three more appointments scheduled for later in the evening. I figured I probably wouldn't cancel them, even though it was highly illegal- this kind of thing- punishable by death. It is also illegal to eat fruits or vegetables that are shaped a certain way. Killing police officers is not illegal, nor is it illegal to own unreasonably dangerous guns.

I live in a small cabin in a crater on Red Planet and the laws are very strange there.

I don't know yet

2011-05-23T11:24:00.002-07:00

I can't explain what I'm going to do every time I've got a mansion pouring out of my arms and there's everybody staring pointing saying get him and I have to wait until the entire thing gets built before I can manufacture a likeness of myself made out of 150mph tire water to replace the space where I am standing, sort of.

I don't get it when I bend forward to go into the wind and then in the wind there's a wind shift that woofs big and turns me around walking backwards holding my hand saying reassuring things while a motion activated house light turns on and everybody inside can be seen later on the evening news loading their swords and making wooping sounds.

I'm not sure what it means every time a barbarian mime wakes me up at nine thirty and informs me that he'll be following me around all day to monitor something that he himself is fuzzy on but it's for the greater good and not to be worried and he'll be out of my way soon enough because he is needed elsewhere, sure he is.

I really have no idea why certain kinds of electric moments get me stuck and sick and fixed in a spot so softly tucked next to so much good movement and other ones turn me loose to bound three launch steps after the rum soaked penumbra you find when you're turning over stones in soggy ground and a neon salamander appears.

I can't yet get why when your hen comes over into my yard the only thing I can think about is blowing it to hell with a fireball, sorry.

I'm trying to find out why this really ugly zealot looking highlander type who I keep writing letters to always finds a way to get into my house and bite the shit out of my ankles at night while I'm sleeping but he still won't write back.

I haven't found an explanation for all the puffy swollen time I've spent staring into who knows what thinking zilch and probably somewhere in a parallel universe bowling an immaculate gutter ball.

I'm always speculating about what I'm going to do every time I run around a corner to avoid your precious shadow you aren't attatched to.

I'm wondering a lot about what happens in the late afternoon when I'm looking at ducks on a bay and there's no difference between the water and the sky and I might as well get shot in the head right there but it never happens.

I still can't say why if I find someone at night I insist on crawling all over them like a bug who knows what it's doing through its feet like a gigantic bug late at night crawling all over you.

2011-05-21T11:49:00.000-07:00

Here's an eight-some of stories I wrote when I was 19. I'm not sure I should be linking to this old stuff but, 'why the fuck not?' as the saying goes. If somebody sues me I will probably win the case. I'm not sure how I feel about these, but 'why the fuck not?' as the saying goes. There's no audio and part of the last one is missing but 'why the fuck not?' as the saying goes. Also you should go to everydayyeah.com often and also click on the baumer blog. It's good for you.

http://everydayyeah.com/audio/by/artist/ross_fielding

Turbulent Friendship Machine/ safer version

2011-05-17T18:00:00.000-07:00

med. microsoft paint

^(safer version)

text message to Sigmund Freud (but i did have this dream)

2011-05-17T13:18:00.000-07:00

Last night I had a dream that I was part of a small group of people who work together to accomplish tasks. We had guns and it seemed like it would not be a good idea to try to accomplish our tasks without guns. I was in the military or something. Or maybe it was a branch of service involved with the underground group that secretly controls everything that conspiracy theory people love to talk about. The Sons of the Gargantuan Patriot/ Motherchrist Dragon Club- something like that. It was me and two other teammate guys. The guns were boxy looking machine guns like the kind you use to kill giant alien bugs probably, and I think we were wearing blue jumpsuits. Maybe we were mechanic/janitor terrorists devoted to unfixing pipes and shitters everywhere with lefty tighty righty loosey wrenches and reverse plungers that pack the shit into unplungeable bricks and leak water all over the place. Doesn't matter.

We were on a mission and we went in to check out this room and one of my teammate guys tripped a laser wire which was weird because that had already happened. Instantly, it had already happened. Allow me to explain: as soon as the guy on my team tripped the laser wire I knew that not only were we locked into the room that we were in but also that we'd already done it a shit load of times because for some reason we were experiencing a repeating time loop where, after we get locked into the room and check it out (turns out there is an overweight middle aged woman kind of down the hall in a room attached to this room who we find and have a chat with each time) the time loop happens again and we trip the wire again and we get trapped again.

So I guess it's happened a lot already but my teammate guy trips the wire and we're all like "Fuck, it's that fucking time loop," more or less, and the consensus is a general feeling of dread and impending/potentially unending doom. We walk down into the other room and there's the overweight middle aged lady. She is sitting on what I vaguely remember to be some kind of platform in a tree in the center of the room, not too high up. She's really nice, especially her voice, and she reminds me of a homeroom teacher I had in high school- can't remember her name. I don't know what we talk about but I remember feeling sexually interested toward the overweight middle aged woman on the platform in the tree. Then the time loop happens again.

This time I remember we're at the beginning of a time loop involving an invisible trip wire and as I see my teammate guy walking toward it I wrap him up into a headlock and begin to explain why he needs to not walk that way, but then out of nowhere a cat- a fucking cat- walks nonchalant around the corner in front of us and trips the thing. It actually stops where the laser wire is and starts contently licking its paws and cleaning itself and we are like, "fucking seriously?"

We go down and talk to the overweight middle aged woman again but this time she looks a little different but again the way she is talking is making me feel like I should get a little closer and more personal and I think I do that but it's a pretty fleeting part of the dream because now me and my teammate guys are talking about what we should do about this time loop situation. The guy who always trips the wire- he's young and tall, kind of looks like me, but with curly hair and glasses- suggests we each put a bullet in our heads because that's probably the only way out of a situation like this. I get an idea though, and I say, "we should write books about this," and the guy looks at me and says, "that would be trippy." I remember that vividly.

The next loop happens but this time we manage to not trip the wire and instead decide to go back up the staircase we apparently came from. There we meet up with the rest of our team (I guess) and they're like "what was down there," and we are pretty elated we got out of the time loop because I hug one of the guys because (I remember) it felt to us like we'd been in the time loop for weeks.

Or are we still in the time loop? That idea gets into my head. I start asking the other teammate guys on the stairs questions but they aren't saying anything, just kind of glancing around and changing the subject and my heart drops because I realize I am probably stuck in a time loop forever.

But then I'm walking around this weird future-looking complex which apparently maybe seems to be our home base and I am not getting time looped. I think. I start to feel pretty good about that. I see a good friend of mine (apparently) and start to talk to him about weird-ass dream shit. We shoot the dream shit for a while.

Then I woke up. wut do u think th@ m34nz, sigmund freud? lol. u R ded. lol.

Me and Combo/ In the Movies

2011-05-11T00:13:00.000-07:00

I let Combo use the rototiller for the day. I wasn't displeased. Within minutes my lawn had been churned to hell and he came back inside to get the special fancy lemonade I promised him he'd get when he was done. It had crushed up pills and different kinds of liquids that I knew nothing about, but Combo had made a list and specified the kinds and types he wanted, the deal being if I made it for him he'd do whatever work I could dream up to get a glass full of the stuff. I thought he'd quit halfway through.

Combo has a reputation for quitting. He quit school really young. He said the teachers knew he'd fail. He said he knew because of how they looked at him. I don't think he's ever held a job longer than a month. He's never cooked a meal because he says the food takes a stupid amount of time to cook. He's never made scrambled eggs. But I got him to rototill my entire front lawn in one day. I guess some people really like special fancy lemonade.

Reasons I was able to get the ingredients for the lemonade:

I work in a hospital

I've worked there a long time

People trust me.

Reasons I shouldn't be working in a hospital:

I decided it'd be a good idea to make the special fancy lemonade for Combo.

People trust me.

Combo has a bushy face. His eyebrows are what you see when you look at him for the first time and they go in lines that make you unsure of how you should talk to him. That's the first thing I remember about meeting him. When we met we talked about different action movies we had seen. I was eagerly and exceptionally drunk and it was the only conversation I had loved in a long time. Apparently we went to high school together but never knew each other. Now I own a house and have a full time hospital job where I'm never home and I don't really talk to anybody, but one day I'm drunk in a bar and I meet Combo and my life changes.

"We humans have the weird ability to latch on to people and ideas and occupy them by making them the justice we need to redeem our antiquity."- That's a quote from my favorite author.

Combo comes into the house after he's rototilled the fuck out of my owned earth. I say, "Combo, you did it." Combo is sweating unreasonably- he is walking with wide steps and leaving a trail of sweat on the floor and he goes past me and into the kitchen grunting which is when I realize he is not my friend and he never will be.

I follow Combo into the kitchen, nearly slipping on his sweat trail. And it's when I'm regaining my balance from the almost fall that I see he's somehow drunk the entire blender full of special fancy lemonade. But I know that's not exactly the case. I catch my balance while being shocked he's killed 60 something ounces of half frozen fluid, but that's what I expected somehow, and actually I imagined it even worse, imagined him coming in and killing me and then drinking it or at least breaking one of my limbs and then drinking it while asking about where he can get more and how fast and all his dumb fucking sideways diagonal eyebrow upside-down questions he'd be likely to say- I imagined these scenarios, and so the real special fancy lemonade is actually in the fridge in a tupperwear container labeled "bullshit".

Combo is staring at me waiting for the kick-in. I have a feeling that's what he's doing. This is a lot how I imagined it would be. "Thanks for doing all that work," I say.
"Thanks for making the special fancy." - his voice sounds calm because he is out of breath and thinks he is about to get stoned.
"Well, that's not what that was."
"That wasn't it?"
"No."
"What was that?"
"I made that for myself, it's just regular."
-pause-
"Ok"
-pause-
Combo: so where's mine?
Me: hold on.

I go to the fridge and open the bullshit and pour it into a cup. It looks like you boiled three cheetos in vinegar and put it in water and poured in a thimble amount of red cough syrup and added blended yellow colored ice and maybe slipped and cut yourself in the process.

"Here you go."

Combo drinks the glassfull in three gulps. It is so many different drugs. I know what three of them are out of maybe 20 or so mixed in. The three I recognize are each different in terms of classification. One's an amphetamine, one's a depressant, one's a dissociative, and that's the only three I know out of maybe 20 or so mixed in. Combo and I stand in the kitchen looking at each other. His eyebrows actually look normal right now. I say, "Well, I appreciate the help."
"Yeah, no sweat."
I drop my head and look at the floor, opening my eyes wide at his sweat trail, then I glance up at him.
We both laugh.
I didn't know he could get jokes.
This is going so well.
"Why did you want me to dig up your lawn?"

The question throws me into trying to come up with an answer. I go to say something but all I do is make my lips into a form while I start to think about it. A little deeper. I'm thinking in difficult. I try to say another reason but I get a little electric 'no' in the center of my thought and I think I actually snort a half laugh. *Hughsn* I'm delving into why. I'm reaping my brain trying to go about it systematic. I start to feel a pang because I know trying to go about it systematic means I'm probably going to lie. I used to do this verbatim every time someone asked me a question, smiling while saying it, but lately I've been trying to correct the node in my brain that goes that way. I'm digging, which is better. Digging down to get an answer to say to him. And while I'm doing it I notice peripherally that Combo is changing. There are different angles in his face. His skin is a different color, and, I'm sure, a different temperature. He's sneering wholeheartedly. He's whirling in his thought process while I'm trying to answer his question. All this happens in probably twenty seconds.

"I'm sick of going to the movies." I hear myself say. Immediately I realize I mean this deeply or I don't mean this slightly. And I don't know what Combo..

..is doing? What is Combo doing? His body is kind of shaking like a plane in turbulence. He starts laughing and maybe crying simultaneously, jittering his shoulders like a jeering demented excuse to play. I am hoping he is playing. His mental is getting to me because it is so farfetched I'm not sure who I am and what the situation is. Combo speaks.

"Whut huhuhuhhhuuu? Are you talkingABOUT. HAHAAAAA. Man I'm wild inside of here. THANk you. THAnk you. WOW. jeezus, I Should calm down a tick AHAA. Whut didju say aggen, I'm sorry man. Oh man, Oh."

"No I was just saying.."

"WHUuuuuUUUUHUAAAAH! OHHHOOOT! THis is touchdown. This is touchdown this is touchdown this is touchdown this is touchdown this is touchdown..iss iz tuchdown iss is ouch owan this is uch..." Combo keeps going, trailing off his 'this is touchdown' speech while getting really quiet and walking around my kitchen with his hands on his ears.

"Your eyes are doing weird stuff Combo."

"THANK YOU!"

"What was in that lemonade?"

"AWWhahahah, that's very funny."

"Can you tell me, actually? I really would appreciate that right now."

"You are immense, my friend. You. Are. Immense."

I'm watching Combo die. I didn't really realize it until just now. His facial expressions are going pinball machine and I'm positive there is so much drug whirring inside his system that he is going to be dead soon. I'm thinking about how far into the woods I should drive before I bury him. Somehow he manages to talk. I don't know how much time has passed, but he's down on the floor, looking up at me, his eyes rapturing their pupils. Some of his words take on a little extra weight. Like someone above or beside both of us in the room is placing the ace of spades face up on his language, intermittently.

"Do you remember being in high schooul?do YOu remember gym classwe had gym Together?"

"Yeah Combo I remember that." (I don't remember that)

"Do you remaimber that little bobby something girtle or something?"

"Yeah Combo, I remember bobby girtle." (I don't remember him)

"Didjsu know he used to talk about.."

Here Combo goes quiet for a long time. His eyes are like cue balls. I'm sure this is it. I start to imagine a tunnel- for some reason I'm imagining the passageway he is taking to get to wherever he is going. It is dimly lit, but the orange blues that exist within are the morning colors nobody remembers except when they're there happening to you- you couldn't fall asleep- or- you happened to wake up early and notice. His face is translucent to me. I can see his brain. I realize I am knee deep in my own thought. I don't know what I'm looking at. I am forgetting the current situation. My eye information is mixing with the quiet and it makes me feel like I'll never be able to say anything ever again. No more words will ever come out of my throat because of this right now.

"I made it all up. You didnt know bobby girtle. haha."

"I'm sorry Combo." (I don't know if I'm sorry)

...*****...

Combo must weight two twenty plus. I never realized it, I'm about as tall as Combo but his weight is incredible. I have to pull my car into the backyard so the neighbors will be less likely to see. I do it that night at 4 in the morning. I'm dragging Combo by his ankles. His head goes bonk bonk bonk down the wood steps into the yard. I don't know if I'm crying or not but my molars are locked on top of one another in a way that I will regret later when the cop pulls me over and I have to re-unhinge my jaw to talk.

I get him in the trunk and clamp it down.

The trunk goes 'BUNK'. The noise makes me think of movies where people are put in trunks. Dead people go in trunks in movies. In movies it's always funny when the dead get put in trunks. I'm curled up next to the driver side door thinking about movies where people get put in trunks. The characters who get put in trunks always have a reason to be there, they are tertiary or they are expendable, or a cop, or a drug dealer, or a bad guy- that's why it's funny. Usually the shot is from inside the trunk looking up as the people who killed the guy in the trunk open the trunk to brag about or explain about why the guy is in there. But there's always a reason. There is no reason why Combo is in my trunk. He's probably in my trunk because I saw it in movies. I should have just called the police and said 'drug overdose, my house'. I drive the car into the driveway, go inside the house and wait until the morning, a few hours away.

Inside the house, I'm waiting. The sun is going to come up. The color in the sky starts black and after a few minutes it slights to show blue, then the blue imbues itself over time. You can't even count how many blues take place before the orange cracks open. I'm sitting in a chair staring out the window thinking of all this. Orange cracks open red at first. It dips its face at me and I hate it immensely, the color I've seen so many times because I can't sleep. "Fuck you," I say at the color. I don't know what's going to happen, is why I say that. I'm just scared. Mostly people say 'fuck you' when they are scared. The red cracks open orange. Somehow the orange makes me feel better.

The sudden rain is unexpected.

I turn out of the driveway in the rain, and Combo is in my trunk, dead, and I know this is the beginning of the best movie I have ever seen.

You go have a sit and try not to think about anything but inevitably there's a lot going on everywhere/ safer version

2011-05-06T17:06:00.000-07:00

med. Microsoft Paint

^(safer version)

First Post

2011-05-01T17:13:00.000-07:00

Every day he'd try to draw a map of the universe. He'd start on a side part in the wall and make his hands go up and down to get an outer mess.

Here he has a coffee and forgets where he is for a bit.

Then he bumps along the edge fumbling and shifting his weight to get mess lines jot down. Pulls at one mess to get into the middle. Starts to draw the big eye. Locks a few lines around the eye to signify its situated. Rubs his ass in colored rot and pulls the fridge next to the wall and does push ups from the fridge, ass going pat pat pat.

Good, planets are done.

Knocks the fridge on its side doors open to the wall. Puts on boots.

Here he has a cigarette and forgets where he is for a bit.

Stomps the food come out of the fridge until the floor is brown green yellow and plastic lumps. Hysterically laughing dresses himself in the lumps. No point to this part.

Everything is boring. You're a boring dinosaur living in a cave. You dress yourself in new spines. You go to the store and buy cleaver lips for you mouth bit. You drive to X-mart and pay cash for a spindle rack to attach to your exterior. You climb out of bed saying romp romp romp. You gulp down OJ hoping it elongates your vitamins so you can get big and win.

Here he gulps down OJ and forgets who he is for a bit, he never knew.

Erases the universe so far. Got it wrong again. Puts the fridge back in its place. Cleans up the floor. Dips the boots in hydrochloric suds. Strips down and showers. Feels naked rotten and supreme. Eats toast.

Everything is moron. You're a moron so you drive to the bank to get your moron money. You moron play with yourself in the moron bank drive-through but nobody sees you doing it. You moron win at that. You fill your car with moron gas and drive to go see your moron friends. I'm just kidding.

Every day he'd try to climb into the center of the sky. He'd start taping on more ladders-sometimes three, sometimes five. He'd drag the stack to the big tree and prop it up and start grabbing rungs.

Here he sees an ant living in the tree and forgets what he is for a bit.

He keeps climbing up, grabbing rungs and stepping on rungs, going up. It's starting to bend again. He sees more ladders means more bending at the top. He keeps on climbing, grabbing rungs stepping rungs. His lungs tell him a story about how high up he is. He can barely listen as he passes into the first cloud. This section is up close mist and drift wind pushing his vision longer and wider until he's in a room. He steps off the ladder for a break. He's not sure how long it will be here. He sits down at the table and orders a beer. He drinks and feels like another one but he knows he better get going. He's older than he used to be.

Here he sees himself three years ago sitting across the table with three empty beers ordering a forth and forgets how he is for a bit.

Back on the ladder he is reaching the severe bend. He always gets here and always tests the bend. Every time he tries the bend the bend feels his weight and decides to wilt down to the Earth. Today is no different. Why would today be different? It could be. It is but it isn't. Same thing only different. That is every..

Here he lets himself think instead of do and forgets where he is for a bit.

The extra weight of his new attachment ladders gets the bend going a little faster than he is used to. Now he is climbing horizontally. He switches from hands and knees on top to swung under monkey bar style and back to hands and knees on top. A strong wind says bend badly and the bend complies, he smiles, he is riding. He is riding. He is riding it out. He is slipping. He is slipping limbs. He is falling. He is falling.

Here he realizes he is falling.

His organs are occupying him wretched and are saying after all we've done for you have decided to make us crushed ground chunks before we had a chance to tell you better stories. He feels death next to him, rapidly calm. Overwhelming death whispers things he could never think of. His fear starts to wriggle and twitch. It starts to change into something else.

Here he finds the horizon, then the straight down, and angles himself headlong toward infinity.

Here he picks up speed.

Here he is going faster.

Here he can no longer feel death. Death changed him and got lost.

Here he is death because he embraces death alive.

I'm just kidding.

Every day he'd get up and go to work. He'd get in the car and turn the key and drive to work and sit down and stand up and do work and say hi and do work and say oh? and do work and yawn and walk around and do work and say yeah and do work and go to the bathroom and wash his hands and do work and sit around and stand around and do work. I'm just kidding.

Thirst Post

2011-04-29T15:09:00.000-07:00

Starting a blog today to post things on the internet. I've never posted anything on the internet before. There was a shadowy figure, I remember, posting things the way that I remember I might have but the memory fades in and out and I can't convince myself it ever happened. I think he moved away because he was inflating and deflating too quick. He used to deal Raisin Bran. Yeah, I vaguely remember him now. He would cross the street for something to do. He would bleat like a sheep with his brother in the basement. He would stay perfectly still for a long time until numb meant pleasantly gone. Here he is, he's sitting in the room with me now. Wait.. No it was something else. He was right behind me, but.. I think he was holding a crossbow. Made out of plywood and bungee chords. Teeth decorated it. And he aimed it at himself, grinning. Maybe not. Everywhere I've lived there has been at least one instance of an animal sounding like it is trapped in the wall. We are going to be best friends.

The blog looks like shit but I'll make it better for you, my love.